ESPN Freshwater

In the past few years, my family's annual spring ski trip adventure to Colorado has found the Suburban packed with the usual array of parkas, sweaters and mittens.

It's also found a few other notable items, including my fly rod and reel, fly vest, breathable waders and wading boots.

For as much as I love to ski, I also love to flyfish for trout — even in the waning stages of wintertime and the infancy of spring.

Following a snowy winter that has seen sizable dumps of fresh powder across the state's high country, Colorado is still receiving plenty of new snow … with more forecasted.

But with every passing day, another epic Colorado spring is drawing nigh, even where the air is thin. And the trout are noticing the lengthening days, gradually warming waters and increasing bug activity.

If you're heading for the state's famed slopes for some spring-break powder shredding, consider bringing the fly rod along for a visit to these trout hotspots:

From Aspen and Snowmass: Frying Pan River

To try to point out a Colorado epicenter of both skiing and flyfishing would be about as dangerous — for me anyway — as trying to descend down a double black-diamond chute on an icy morning.

But as I found out last year, the slopes at Aspen and Snowmass combined with the nearby Frying Pan River tailwater (not to mention the Roaring Fork River) would be a pretty strong candidate.

In addition to the legendary slopes that get buried in champagne powder, the Frying Pan offers anglers a chance to hook some true-blue piscatorial pigs.

In fact, the Frying Pan's famous trout can tip the scales in the double-digits thanks to the ample supply of protein-rich Mysis shrimp spilling through the bowels of Reudi Dam into the 40-degree river.

If you can pull yourself away from the glitz and glimmer of Aspen, bring a fly box full of midges, BWO (blue-winged olive) nymphs and Mysis shrimp imitations and you'll not be disappointed.

From Crested Butte: Taylor River

It's a tough decision for a ski/trout bum when you arrive in the town of Gunnison: either head up to the glorious mountains of Crested Butte — or make a detour for the Taylor Reservoir and the Mysis shrimp-rich tailwater paradise that lies below it, the Taylor River.

Like the Frying Pan, the Taylor River's trout are legendary for their size, thanks again to a steady diet of scampi.

Anglers who venture from the slopes close by at Crested Butte with a supply of shrimp patterns can expect to see a good number of solid rainbows, including some double-digit lunkers that will double your fishing rod over.

From Durango Mountain: Animas River

A couple of years back while spending a few days shredding the slopes at Durango Mountain Resort, the lure of the Animas River proved to be too much for this flyangler.

Before I knew it, I was knee deep in the river behind the well-known "Burger King" run in the middle of Durango, hoping to coax a late-winter brown to take my nymph.

Unfortunately, an untimely warm-up at the lower elevations had conspired with a recent moderate snowfall to stain the river considerably. Such is the luck of a ski-season trout bum.

If prowling the Animas sounds appealing to you, concentrate on fishing midges, BWO patterns and streamers in the big, tumbling river.

And remember, while the river can be moody at times in late winter and early spring, the aforementioned portion of the Animas that flows through Durango can deliver up more than a few "Whoppers"— 20-inch brown trout, that is!

From Monarch Pass: Arkansas River

One of the most difficult drives for me to make in the entire state of Colorado is west out of Canon City to Salida along Route 50.

It's hard to concentrate on the highway surface while paralleling one of the state's most beautiful stretches of trout water as it tumbles through a spectacular canyon occupied by the occasional fleet-footed bighorn sheep.

Most Colorado anglers know well that the Arkansas River goes off each year during the legendary Mother's Day caddis hatch.

But mid- to late winter isn't too bad either, according to Bill Edrington of Royal Gorge Anglers in Canon City. That's especially true when the first few BWO hatches begin to appear in late February and March.

Indeed, blue-winged olive mayflies can really begin to pop along the river when a rare mix of a 50-degree air, low cloud cover and light snow occurs.

"That sounds strange, but you can have that in the southern Rockies at that time of the year," Edrington said.

"The air at the surface is warm but above you the air can be so cold that you can still get light snow. Those heavy, wet, spring conditions where you have high moisture content in the air, that's what they (BWOs) love.

"I love the snow because it traps them in the water in the surface film. The fish go completely crazy when those bugs get trapped in the surface film and can't get away. Usually, I get one day like that a year."

And if the BWOs are popping along the Arkansas — and word from Edrington's fly shop is that they are — the famed Mother's Day caddis hatch is just around the corner.

From Summit County: Blue River

With its quartet of ski resorts — Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain and Keystone — Summit County certainly makes a bid for being the capitol of Colorado's so-called "Ski Country USA."

But the area also is home to one of the state's top winter-tailwater angling destinations — the Blue River as it spills below Dillon Lake.

While the Mysis-rich trout stream can run low and clear, making for spooky fish, the payoff is piggish rainbows up to 10 pounds slurping shrimp cocktails in downtown Silverthorne, where semi-trucks thunder overhead on I-70 and outlet-mall shoppers cheer big-fish victories as they stroll on nearby walkways.

As with other streams coming out of the late-winter doldrums in Colorado, midge patterns are the ticket here. And it never hurts to have a Mysis shrimp pattern handy, either.

As powder hounds across the country know all too well, ski season is winding down as the final big snows of winter and early spring pile high in "Ski Country USA."

That means that it's time to shred some late-season powder in the Colorado high country. But with the trout fishing heating up more with each passing day, don't forget to pack the fly rod with your ski poles.